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October 2010

October 22, 2010

Awwww, Melbourne gets all the cool stuff, even the funkiest looking laundromat in the country! (and I've been in laundromats all across the country, so I know my laundromats...).

Check out SUDS Laundrette, a trendy little number that's just opened in South Yarra, on the ground floor of Society:

Inspired by an Alice in Wonderland theme (hmmm, hardly original) "and the thought of stepping outside of a specific world and into another", it sure is groovy looking, but I still think I like my old classic retro laundromats better.

Cleaning up around my studio recently, I came across some ink & watercolour pictures I did a couple of years ago when I was creating/designing my Laundromatic book. I was really chuffed to find them again, dusted them off, and promptly popped them up on a nearby wall. You might remember these from a long-ago post on Shelbyville:

And this was how some of the pics looked as a spread inside the cotton version of Laundromatic:

I also found the ink sketch that became the opening/title page:

Ahh, here's to memories, and finding things thought lost, and laundromats - those beautiful, beautiful laundromats (old and new) sprinkled about the country...

Michellex

P.S. To get you into a laundromatic kind of mood, here's a very cool album worth checking out - Spin Cycle by Michael Lowenstern. You can listen to all 10 chilled tracks (featuring bass clarinet, harmonica, WiCoder, Kaossilator, body percussion and violin) for free over here at a site called Earspasm, and you can even download the album to keep for $5.

October 11, 2010

The Pine Street Creative Arts Centre in Chippendale is hosting a quick one-week exhibition that opens tomorrow night and continues until Sunday the 17th October 2010. Featuring the zine artwork of a number of Sydney zinesters and artists, the show will certainly offer an intriguing peek into the zine world and the backend creativity that goes into the making of a zine. Also, featured zines and artworks will be available for sale by the various artists.

The exhibition launch is on tomorrow - Tuesday night from 6:30pm (free drinks too!) and exhibition hours are mentioned in the flyer below.

Here's me setting up my Red Doors & Robots submission in the exhibition, in one hour flat! The 12 panels I'm putting up are the actual page artwork I used for the zine - I created each page as its own collaged art panel, scanned the results, and from these I created the internal pages of the zine.

I also pinned up some of the conceptual work behind the creation of the RD&R zine, including the story as written by collaborating writer Sonya Gee, the photography board that inspired the story, sketches, design workings, and some of the hand-stencilled text that was incorporated into the pages.

Virgin gallery space! First up for installation. The other artists were installing their artwork today and tmrw, just in time for Tuesday's launch.

As mentioned, the Red Doors & Robots zine will be available for sale during the exhibition, along with some of my other zines and robot-inspired stickers and badges :)

Hope you can make it along to the launch/exhibition - Would love to see you there!

The day also marked the launch of the newest Art Map - a complementary guide to 28 non-for-profit artist-run initiatives (ARIs) in Sydney's inner city and inner west.

Pictured above, this folded and travel-weary copy is the latest 2010 Art Map that you can pick up a copy of from any ARI around town, but you can also download a PDF of the 2009 map at the ARI Guide website (which I'm guessing will be updated shortly):

On the walking tour, I was especially pleased to be introduced to The Paper Mill - a very new gallery space tucked away in one of Sydney's CBD laneways. I'd recently heard about it through the zine grapevine, but hadn't seen the space in person until Saturday. As the name suggests, The Paper Mill has a focus on paper-based art. And interestingly enough, also supports the zine community by stocking and selling zines in a corner of the gallery space.

^ The gallery space is between exhibitions at the moment, but the zine corner was busy!

If you're interested in stocking your zines with The Paper Mill, jump over to their website www.thepapermill.org.au for a look at their submission guidelines. Also, here's a pic of the flyer I picked up on the day:

There's also some groovy things going on over at Gaffa Gallery, which recently moved from its original Surry Hills home into an amazing space on Clarence St (an old converted police station!) that boasts 3 floors of gallery goodness, including at street level an arcade of little stores (currently tenanted by Finders Keepers regulars), the gallery shop, and a fabulous coffee shop called Klink. The second floor is all gallery space, and the third floor is dedicated purely to artists' workshop space (and classes are also held up there).

^ Gaffa's ground floor layout

As I mentioned, The Finders Keepers will be taking over the Arcade Project at Gaffa Gallery (marked on the floor plan as 1, 2, 3, and 4) from September to December this year. They've collaborated with a variety of designer-makers to fill the Arcade spaces with a mix of indie design and art. Over the next few months the spaces will include art, prints, accessories, jewellery, homewares and textiles.

Round One also features a special retro-styled "reading room" by Frankie Magazine, where you can find copies of the mag, calendars, journals, cards, and their scrumptious cookbooks.

A friend and I went along to the Arcade Project launch a couple of weeks ago, and it's all looking pretty sweet - I even picked up a couple of Christmas pressies for friends, and a spanky new illustrated 2011 Frankie diary for myself:

There's also some exciting developments happening down the Wooloomooloo end of Bourke Street, including a new studio complex called Firstdraft Depot, offering affordable studios to emerging and experimental artists, along with a diverse calendar of activities for artists and communities. The Depot provides flexible and affordable studio workspaces for six emerging and experimental artists through the Affordable Studio Program, as well as housing Firstdraft’s two Emerging Artist Studio Program artists.

The Depot also provides access to an independent artist-run printing press called the Big Fag Press, which is something I'm keen to look into for some future zine projects...!

So yes indeed, there's a whole world of arty stuff to explore in and around Sydney right now (although, when is there NOT?), so grab yourself a copy of the ARI Art Map, and a copy of the current 2010 Art & About Festival Guide too, and go have some fun!

This album shows some of the artworks I've done over the years, and covers a range of mediums including coloured pencil, charcoal, pastel, oils, watercolour, polymer clay, photography, architectural renderings, and a whole mix of others. 'Mix' is a good word...